As per my last guide, this one assumes you have full knowledge of:

- Kaycee's Mod (KM) in general
- All 3 unlockable items within KM
- All 16 unlockable cards within KM
- All 8 unlockable starter decks within KM
- All 15 unlockable challenges within KM

Inscryption, and Kaycee's Mod, are BEST experienced blind, and if you haven't unlocked everything here, then this guide may not be for you. Come back when you've gained more experience. Don't worry, I'm real patient.

Welcome back to my NEW AND IMPROVED Weathering the Storm guide. Why make a new one, you ask? Honestly, the sheer amount of support I've gotten from the comments section made me realize my guide needs to be more than edited... it needs to be rewritten.

Nothing much has changed from the last guide, aside from a ton of major stuff, and I noticed I had a tendency to prattle on, so I'm going to actually try keep this a little concise. Whether or not that ends up happening is a different matter.

Another thing - this achievement requires some insane RNG to pull off. It's a grind to get the perfect storm (heh), and shouldn't be taken lightly. Unless you get really lucky like some of the commentors and get it on your second run... So, just a heads up. You might be here a while.

Last thing - YOU NEED 15 SKULLS ACTIVE TO EARN SKULL STORM. If you don't have all 15, get your next challenge level and come back.

Padded introduction is padded, if you spoil yourself at this point it's on you. Let's do this.

Skull Storm is a hidden achievement earned by completing a game of KM with every challenge enabled. This means...

• NO HOOK. You do not start with the Fish Hook item.
  
• SMALLER BACKPACK. Your pack holds 2 items instead of 3.
  
• NO CLOVER. You may not re-roll card choices.
  
• PRICEY PELTS. The Trapper's pelts cost more.
  
• BOSS TOTEMS. Bosses also have totems in play.
  
• TIPPED SCALES. Start all battles with 1 damage on your side of the scales.
  
• ALL TOTEM BATTLES. Every battle is a totem battle.
  
• NO BOSS RARES. Bosses award regular cards instead of rares.
  
• MORE DIFFICULT. More and stronger creatures in all battles.
  
• MORE DIFFICULT. Even more and even stronger creatures in all battles.
  
• SINGLE CANDLE. You have 1 life.
  
• ANNOYING STARTERS. Cards in your starter deck also have the Annoying sigil.
  
• SQUIRREL FISH. Your squirrels have the Waterborne sigil.
  
• GRIZZLY BOSSES. Grizzlies appear in the first 3 boss battles.
  
• FINAL BOSS. Leshy is replaced as the final boss. Heave. Ho.

So the big one here is obvious.


Every boss's second phase is replaced with Eight ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Mighty Leap Grizzlies. Planning around these is critical for beating Skull Storm, because if you go in unprepared, you'll get your ass handed to you. Let's go over some general deck strategies and see what we can pick up.

Of course I'm gonna slot my boy Mantis God at the front of the guide.

Mantis God's trifurcated strike is exactly what you need to deal ridiculous damage and win turn one, every time. Get your Ringworm eaten at the campfire, and find a way to ditch the other one somehow. Buff the hell out of Mantis God. At bare minimum, it needs 2 power to OTKO Leshy with three empty lanes... but obviously more strength is better. Aim for 7 power if you can (that's three double Power Flames) so you can win any combat you topdeck it in.

The rough part is topdecking Mantis God, right? Well, here's the primary reason I'm rewriting this guide: you are always guaranteed to topdeck a creature worth 1 Blood or less. If Mantis God is your only 1 Blood creature, then you're golden and will topdeck it every time. Keep it this way by always taking high-cost creatures when you're forced to add to your deck.

NOTE! If you have to add a card to your deck, never EVER pick a card with a Bone cost. Leshy treats Bone cards as having a Blood cost of 0... which means you could topdeck a bone creature instead of your Mantis God. Ew.
EDIT: Thanks to comments, I found out this isn't quite true. You can topdeck a bone card, but only if you're able to play it turn 1 with your initial hand or resources (ie bone boon, potentially bone bank item? Needs testing). Still, it's worth avoiding bone cards if you can help it, in case things line up just right where you don't topdeck DSMG.

With this strat, MG will carry you up until the bears, where it relies on items to break through... unless it's 7 power with Double Strike, in which case it immediately wins. I used to be an advocate for Unkillable MG, but DSMG honestly takes the cake in terms of raw damage output. Just be careful with your positioning against the Trapper.

A second probably more viable strategy is the Unkillable Beehive, which is exactly what it sounds like. Unkillable Bees. Your main problem here is getting past your standard totem battles, but with the sheer number of Bees Per Second you're shooting out, I think that's not a problem so long as you topdeck it.

Same rules for topdecking Mantis God apply here - if Unkillable Beehive is the only 1-Blood card in your deck, you'll always topdeck it (provided you don't have any 0-Bloods or Bone costs). The one problem I see Beehive having is that it's quite reactionary, requiring a couple turns to get the bee engine running as opposed to the OTKO that MG provides.

Regarding the grizzlies, the bee engine handles them well. The bees can't kill the grizzlies, but they don't need to; simply stall out the grizzlies by blocking them with bees, and when Starvation sets in, your bees will fly over them and attack for direct damage. Easy win, but it takes a while.

This strategy relies on gambling. Lots and lots of gambling for that perfect start-of-run setup.

Unkillable Geck with Ant Spawner.

Grab Cockroach for Unkillable, and make your totem Reptile: Ant Spawner. Similar to Bees strat, this one lets you fill your board with infinite mobs - and this time, they actually do damage! Topdeck Geck using the same rules outlined above, play to draw ant, sac to play ant, repeat until your board is full of 4/2 ants and let loose. You can OTKO so long as you've got two free lanes and three ants.

On paper, this strategy is highly effective, but it all comes down to getting the perfect storm of taking Geck deck, getting Cockroach and transferring Unkillable onto Geck, trashing your tadpole and rabbit, and getting a Reptile: Ant Spawner totem, all at once. If you're gunning for this strategy, best of luck, it'll take time to reset for it.

You start your run with a Squirrel in a Bottle, as well as a set of Pliers. Use them ASAP, so you have backup plans against the incoming Wall Of Bears in case something goes horribly awry.

• Magickal Bleach. Erase the Mighty Leap sigil from the Grizzlies, and allow fliers to damage Leshy directly. No fliers? Pack a Harpy's Leg Fan alongside it.
  
• Skinning Knife. Destroy a Grizzly, if you've got a creature with enough power to kill on that lane. Scissors do the same thing, except less cool.
  
• Wiseclock. If your leftmost lane is empty, you can use this to both empty Leshy's leftmost lane and get a Grizzly on your side. Just... make sure that you can deal enough damage before the second bear comes out.

These items are the best IMO, anything else should be used so you can get new ones. Unkillable Pack Rat is handy for getting new items on the board. Don't put Pack Rat on a 0- or 1-cost, since that'll mess up your topdeck strats.

So this is probably considered cheese, and definitely considered an exploit, and absolutely outside of the intended play experience. So... don't use this exploit if you don't want to.

That being said - let's learn how to rewind in Inscryption.

Inscryption periodically saves at certain events, completing an Event (any space on the board) and losing a creature to a Flame being the big two we're worrying about. Your RNG from these saves is LOCKED. You can reload a thousand times, and every roll is gonna turn out the same way.

What does this mean? It means we can, by pressing Escape and using Return To Menu, effectively erase our mistakes and craft the perfect run. This rewinds to the last save state - the end of the previous Event - and allows us to make a different choice altogether.

Our main situations we apply the reset button are as follows:

• Losing a battle, or making a mistake that would render a battle unwinnable.
  With only one candle, there are no Ls that you can take. Try to get through a battle using as few items as possible, but if there's truly no other way, it's better to gamble on if you'll get an item back than to have a certain loss.
  
  
• Successful double flame.
  When there are still survivors around the campfire, you ALWAYS want to double Flame a disposable card, with the Ringworm being a prime example. If it passes and gets that +2 Power or +4 Health, reload and apply that bonus to Mantis God, or whatever your topdeck creature is. If it fails, the Ringworm is eaten and all other Flames are free. THE GAME SAVES WHEN A CREATURE IS EATEN, so you can't put Mantis God on the Flame and reload if it fails.

Depends on if manipulation of map RNG counts as cheating to you. Definitely counts as an exploit, but it's moreso bending RNG in your favor as opposed to having to grind out that many more games to get a halfway decent map. I say it's fair game, but you do you.

Normally, your RNG is locked in the moment the game saves, giving you the exact same choices and the exact same card draws on every event. The exception to this is when you first load in the map. The game saves after the stage is chosen but before the map is generated, meaning you can reload to get a different map, and with it, different events. Astute readers will note that the last section saves once you complete an event. Yes, this means you can walk up to the trader and reload if you get bad card choices. This is also significantly faster than losing a battle on purpose to reload your cards, because you don't have to go through the trouble of selecting every skull and relaunching and all that mess.

• Avoid taking low-cost cards whenever possible. Fail Cave Trials where you can, and take the highest Blood cost creature if you succeed. The "Random Card of X Cost" event is great, because you're guaranteed either a Two-Blood or a Three-Blood in the set. Bees deck wants as slim a deck as possible to starve asap.
  
• Trapper is... fine. That extra pelt is a ♥♥♥♥♥ to deal with, due to it being 0 Cost and thus ruining your topdeck (presumably? haven't tested), but at least you can pick up a Skinning Knife.
  
• Destroy unnecessary cards. The Execution and Sacrifice events are great for this. Execute your extra Annoying Ringworm or that useless Opossum. Eliminate any 0- or 1-cost cards that aren't your planned topdeck.
  
• Slime Wizard Best Wizard. Want to see me topdeck 7/5 Mantis God? Want to see me do it again? Dupe your planned topdeck so you've got a backup plan should something go amiss. Of course, this can backfire if your sigils get messed up... so weigh your options carefully if you're heavily relying on a specific sigil.

Seeing the Skull Storm achievement rise from 0.4% to 1.0% (as of 10/27/2022) makes me pretty happy. Glad to be of service!

Honestly, the amount of support I got from everyone on my original WEATHERING THE STORM guide was insane. Thank you, everyone, who commented leaving additional advice - on that guide and this one! also the awards and likes help fuel my ego so thanks bunches <3

Best of luck, may your DSMGs be topdecked!